


Hidden in Stagnant Pools

by Lilili_cat



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 23:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20920742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilili_cat/pseuds/Lilili_cat
Summary: Based off of Coudric'sInto These Deep Waters.  Stop spawning bunnies! D:





	Hidden in Stagnant Pools

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coudric](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coudric/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Into these deep waters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19944841) by [coudric](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coudric/pseuds/coudric). 

**Hidden in Stagnant Pools**

It takes years for him to let go of the anger. Years after understanding just what happened with Izuna, of how Izuna's own escape had put him into that life-threatening situation to begin with, years of seeing white hair and pale skin and not immediately reaching for a kunai.

It's hard, of course. He had grown up thinking of the man has a demon, even when the man was technically a child as young as Izuna. He had spent his most formative years battling against the other man, of hearing and witnessing atrocities at his hand, with his only other knowledge that the man's own brother abandoned him, deemed him too violent and dark to hold any sort of loyalty to.

It's something that he can admit he can barely conceive of. A brotherly bond is the most sacred, the most _close_ of bonds, and he would not give Izuna up for anything, nor allow Izuna any harm come what may. No matter how depraved or how twisted Izuna could become, Madara would not, could not abandon him. It is simply not in an Uchiha's way.

And he's Hashirama's _friend_. Their own bond was broken for a short time, but rekindled soon after when Hashirama abandoned his clan and join ranks with him against his former clan. It's hard for him to think ill of the former Senju, given what he sacrificed for their peace, given that he left clan, kin, _family_ for Madara and their shared ideals.

Sacrifices...like a little brother.

It's just...easier...to think that that brother must not be worth it. That that brother must be so vile, so vicious, so _wrong_ that there is no brotherly bond. That there can be nothing good, nothing worth salvaging in Senju Tobirama in order for the man's own elder brother to leave him behind and take up arms against him.

Because...because the other possibility is that Hashirama is less than virtuous than Madara wants. The other possibility is that Madara's faith in his friend is somewhat misplaced. The other possibility is that Madara doesn't know his friend as well as he thinks, that his friend's done something he would consider untenable and unconscionable, and the very idea itself is revolting, like swallowing rotten fish.

The Uchiha hold such bonds sacred and would sacrifice everything for it. What does it say about Madara that he's willing to tolerate in a friend that which he would not tolerate in himself? What does it say about his priorities, about his capacity for _hypocrisy_ that he holds someone like that in such high esteem?

Except...

Except Tobirama is so very clearly not a monster. Not the banal evil that is unredeemable and so must be abandoned.

He's accepted his punishment without a murmur, without any pushback at all (and yes, Madara didn't want to admit that perhaps their terms were harsh, but he can see just fine in hindsight). He'd allowed himself to be chained, fettered and—

The bile rises to Madara's throat, but he's a shinobi no mono who looks at truths with eyes wide open (except perhaps with regards to Hashirama), and he can admit it, even if he would rather look away.

—abused.

The wounds never did heal, not completely. The Senju will carry the reminders with him until the end of his days. Oh, there's no pain anymore, for all that the medics couldn't do that much—Senju Toka wouldn't allow Hashirama near, Senju Toka wouldn't allow Hashirama anywhere near Tobirama, wouldn't allow him to even try to look after the wounds—but the scars are a nasty, twisted mess that will likely always pull and interfere with the man on any mission he would go on.

Madara had been so viciously glad when he first beheld them. The warm rise of hateful satisfaction had risen in him at seeing the bloody mass, the flayed strips of skin, the thick blood soaking the ground, the pale head bowed in shame. It was just recompense, he had thought at the time, thinking of Izuna, and Izuna's pain, Izuna's eyes, Izuna's life.

He doesn't think that anymore. He can barely stand to be around when the other man cleans himself, always makes an effort to vacate the public bathhouse when he feels the Senju approach. The twisted mass on him, snaking up his side, radiating out from his back and curving around onto his belly, they are a reminder of a darkness, a _wretchedness_ that Madara doesn't want to admit to himself.

He doesn't want to see that reflection of his own depravity, of the depths he was willing to go towards someone who had already surrendered and complied with every single one of the requests he and his clan had made, no matter how harsh and retaliatory. Against a man who he can only now admit, years later, that had very little choice.

He can't take credit for the revelation. Senju Toka had verbally flayed Hashirama, even as Tobirama had been flayed. She had laid task into him, blaming him for the worsening conditions of the clan, blaming him for abandoning them and saving only himself when no one else in the clan had the power, had the ability to fight back.

It's...it's not a wholly justifiable argument, but Madara can see it, was forced to understand it. After all, he barely has enough to sway to move the Uchiha Elder Council, and he's the clan head in good standing. How much worse did Tobirama or Toka or any of the other Senju have it? They have neither his brute power nor his political standing. As the natural wielder of the mokuton, Hashirama had it, but had chosen the purity of his ideals over weaker clanmates.

She still won't forgive Hashirama, still refuses to look at him. And Madara knows it hurts Hashirama, that the daughter of one of the few men he had looked up to blames his death, not on Tobirama, but on _Hashirama_. That the cousin he admired and liked considers him worse than the dirt she picks up beneath her sandals.

At least the dirt doesn't abandon people.

Madara doesn't think Hashirama doomed them as Toka do (and he doesn't know whether he thinks that because it's true or because Hashirama is his _friend_, and he can't bear to think of his friend in that way), but he understands. If he had ever decided to leave the Uchiha—he wouldn't, he couldn't, how could he, they are _clan_ and _family_?—then he would most certainly take Izuna with him.

And Hashirama...

Hashirama had left his behind.

His brother who is...likable.

Kind, almost.

Fiercely protective of children, like that time he'd thrown himself in front of a stray kunai that would have ended Kagami's life. He'd been beaten for that since everyone thought he'd calculated it at first, but it was later found to be an attempt to kidnap an Uchiha child by the Tsuchikage that had gone awry.

He'd gained another three lashes that day, more scars that will never fully heal, and Madara...Madara doesn't think they ever really apologized for that.

Konohan culture is to look away, to expect the aggrieved individual to swallow the bitterness for the sake of a cohesive society. And it was Tobirama, who few wanted to tolerate. And it was understandable, to think that he had something to do with it. So the perhaps no apology was needed, and life could simply go on.

It was just one small blip in the image of the stone-cold Oni, of course. No one need pay any attention.

Except...it kept happening, didn't it? Or at least, _Madara_ kept noticing.

Small things.

The immaculate way Tobirama kept his paperwork after he had finally gained some trust and his fetters were loosened. The way he pushed himself to complete his responsibilities, how matter the cost to himself. The way he didn't even try to get revenge on anyone who's ever hurt him, the way that the Senju children flocked to him. The way that he's always polite, no matter the aggression, the beauty of the landscapes he's painted—his hobby, apparently—the way he's always reasoned in meetings, and generous with their wounded and so very, very brilliant that...

...it's not a surprise, in hindsight, that he became such an enemy. With his eldest son defected, Butsuma would have levied all control over the more brilliant younger one. No matter what Tobirama would have personally wanted, in the end, he was simply too capable, too brilliant an enemy to keep a low profile.

Madara had hated that he was coming to understand the Senju Oni. He hated that he wasn't thinking of the man as an enemy anymore, as Izuna's tormentor, as someone needing to be _stomped down and ground into the dirt._ He was just...that lonely Senju. Very likely pushed to be a military commander far too young. Laid into by his father's demands—and hadn't that been frustrating, that Hashirama's defection may have made the younger brother's position more tenuous, that Hashirama's defection may have directly created the monstrous direction that entire clan eventually took—with no one to defray the pressure and attention before he'd even hit puberty.

It's unsettling, thinking about that. Knowing that the Oni that they'd all branded had been that young when this all started.

Hashirama never wants to think about that, and Madara can't blame him. He can't even think about abandoning Izuna _now_. The thought of abandoning him when he was so young and relatively vulnerable makes him want to tear his own skin off and shred it into tiny pieces. A moral person doesn't _do_ that. Doesn't abandon someone he had responsibility for, someone more vulnerable and unable to fight back. And that's why Tobirama _must_ be a monster, because Hashirama _did_, and Madara knows that Hashirama's a good person.

Except...

Tobirama's a good person, too, isn't he? Dependable. Resourceful. Intelligent. Caring. Self-sacrificing. _Loving_, to have gained such loyalty among the Senju who remain, the young ones, no the old hidebound ones. They don't see him as the Oni. No, they flock to him, leaping into his arms without a care, and would they really do that, could they really do that, if he were truly evil?

And it's not just the Senju children anymore. The Uchiha ones, too, after they got over their initial fear of him, ask him questions, spend time around him, _like_ him.

He likes them back to, Madara can see it. Tobirama welcomes them into his arms when he flinches back from anyone grown. His only smiles—pale shadow that they are—are with them, and it's the only time Madara thinks he can see joy creeping back into the man's eyes.

He wonders if anything else would do it. He wonders if his paintings bring him some joy, some measure of happiness, or if it's only the children's uncomplicated presence. He wonders if he'll stop sliding away.

Because...

Because that's what's happening, isn't it?

Despite the Senju clan loving him, despite the joy he gets from the children, he holds himself apart, shying away from another's innocent touch. He works himself to the bone so obviously that both Madara and Hashirama have noticed (and discussed it in alarm), but he returns to an empty home. And yes, things are getting built, and the village is fully stabilizing, due, in no small part, to those innovations that Tobirama suggested (they'd fought against him at first, but he was so _reasonable_ and his suggestions made so much _sense_ that they agreed to an initial trial...and then fully adopted them once it made things better and more stream-lined), but Tobirama is withdrawing.

He doesn't come out to see the children much anymore, and they wonder where he is. Kagami wonder where he is and asks Madara daily.

And Madara...

Madara doesn't tell anyone, but he privately worries.

The Oni of the Senju. The Terrible White Oni, himself...is a man that he can now (privately) admit that he admires. Respects. Would like to get to know better and perhaps...

Perhaps finally heal the divisions between them. Finally heal the festering rot that he's tried to lance and drain and mend the burnt remains of the bridge that lies between them all. Between his friend and the man that he's coming to appreciate.

Mend that bridge...and perhaps build a new one. A new start. A proper apology for the way the man was treated for so long. A way to see more of those too-brief, too-fleeting smiles. A way to spark some joy in those mesmerizing red eyes.

Perhaps he can be the one adult that Tobirama doesn't flinch from, doesn't shrink back as if every touch is painful, as if every touch is unwanted.

He has some dark suspicions about that. And if he's right...then he will need to involve the Yamanaka. And perhaps coax the pale Senju into seeing them. Wounds like that are poisonous, dangerous. If he's right...it will be enough to permamently lessen the friendship he has with Hashirama. Because his friend's blindness would be unforgivable.

(He would die and sacrifice the entire world and everyone in it if Izuna were ever harmed in that way.)

And as for Kagami's insistent requests about Tobirama and the man's health...well, Madara will check in on him. He hasn't been seen the entire day, and it's possible that the man is sick, given how pale he was in the last several days.

That night, he'll knock on the man's door and just...check to make sure he's alright.

After all, he wants to build that relationship, to begin that road to forging something. And it's a first step as good as any...right?

(He finds him later, in the darkness of his own home. He finds him hanging from one of the ceiling beams, slowly and painfully strangled to death over the course of several hours because he did not have the momentum to snap his own neck. He finds a cold corpse...and he finally finds joy on the man's face.)

**Author's Note:**

> The Senju take the body and consign it to flame. They hold a small private funeral and mourning procession in the privacy of their own compound and refuse to let Hashirama in, even going so far as to ignore his increasingly desperate pleas that changed into increasingly desperate orders. Kagami is invited, and the children, but no one else. And later...
> 
> Later, they place the ashes into a jar and set the jar into a small shrine in the heart of the Senju compound. Hashirama still isn't let in, still isn't allowed to pray for his departed brother or take part in any of the rites. Privately, Madara thinks that it might be just. Cruel, but just.
> 
> And then even later, the Senju compound is engulfed in a freak fire that rampages through their district in the night and takes five of their dwellings, killing three adults and one child. No one thinks to look in on the other possible destruction until the morning, where Uchiha Kagami, married now to Senju Ayami and visiting his in-laws, spots the husk of the little shrine that houses Tobirama's ashes. The little jar lay cracked and broken on the floor, the ashes contained within long since carried away by the wind.
> 
> All that remains of Senju Tobirama are locked away memories.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Changeling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20924099) by [the17thmuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the17thmuse/pseuds/the17thmuse)
  * [Kintsukuroi](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21232229) by [the17thmuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the17thmuse/pseuds/the17thmuse)


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